{"id":247651,"date":"2025-07-08T09:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T09:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247651\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T09:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T09:36:09","slug":"real-reason-thomas-markle-dodged-meghan-and-harrys-royal-wedding-royal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247651\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Real reason’ Thomas Markle dodged Meghan and Harry’s royal wedding | Royal | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Markle<\/a> was famously a no-show at his daughter’s wedding to Prince Harry in 2018<\/a> – but the “real reason” behind his absence may be surprising to many fans. As the royal couple – who met two years prior – prepared to tie the knot in Windsor, Thomas, 80, posed for papparazzi photographs, getting his suit for the big day fitted.<\/p>\n

The pictures soon became embedded in controversy and, coupled with health problems at the time<\/a>, Thomas made the decision to skip Meghan Markle<\/a> and Prince Harry<\/a>‘s big day. In the absence of her own father, King Charles was on hand to walk his new daughter-in-law half-way down the aisle.<\/p>\n

In a new report posted on Sally Bedell Smith’s Substack, she wrote that a close confidant of the late Queen’s revealed the real reason why Thomas was absent from one of the biggest days in Meghan’s life.<\/p>\n

Lady Elizabeth Anson – who the late Queen’s cousin and close friend – told Bedell Smith over the course of conversations they shared that fundamentally Thomas’s motivation for staying away from the high-profile wedding was because he was “frightened”.<\/p>\n

His accessibility into St George’s Chapel was reportedly an issue, with the fact that he “didn’t do steps” due to health issues.<\/p>\n

However, Meghan’s father was simply “frightened of coming to the wedding” in the end, Lady Elizabeth claimed.<\/p>\n

Despite not agreeing with his estranged daughter’s behaviour at time, Thomas has previously said that the “door is always open” to reconcile.<\/p>\n

The retired TV lighting director, who had previously lived in a cliffside property near the US border in Rosarito, Mexico, for over a decade, moved to the other side of the world earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He made the move to Southeast Asia accompanied by his son Thomas Jr., 58, who is Meghan’s half-brother. Through her father, Meghan also has a half-sister Samantha. The half-siblings are set for a courtroom showdown next month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thomas Markle has not met Harry, 40, or his two young grandchildren – Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Markle was famously a no-show at his daughter’s wedding to Prince Harry in 2018 – but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7721,7719,7718,7720,58556,1281,447,7710,519,24553,25675,95885,7711],"class_list":{"0":"post-247651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-duchess-of-sussex","10":"tag-duke-of-sussex","11":"tag-harry","12":"tag-meghan","13":"tag-meghan-harry-wedding","14":"tag-meghan-markle","15":"tag-prince-harry","16":"tag-royal-families","17":"tag-royal-family","18":"tag-royal-wedding","19":"tag-thomas-markle","20":"tag-thomas-markle-wedding","21":"tag-uk-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114816941078513435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}